Promises Kept: Time and Tithe is finished

Working out the 'end game' (don't worry, it makes sense to me)

When I started writing THE BETWEEN in October of 2008, I had no idea it would become a novel, much less have a sequel. The story emerged from a prompt in a writer's group meeting at my local library. One of the other writers gave us the sentence: The sky went dark. We then had 20 minutes to write.

That was the beginning of Lydia's tale.

While THE BETWEEN was my first publication, it represented my fifth completed manuscript, and it took me 8 months to write its first draft. From that point in the summer of 2009 to its publication date in January of 2012, the story was revised four times before I believed it was ready for prime time.

It was only after the story was finished that I understood it was not complete. Or rather, while Lydia's original story has a complete ending, the conclusion of the novel raised a lot of new questions to be answered. I made a promise to myself that I would write an answer to those questions and tackle the monster that is a sequel.

But first I had other novels to write. Between 2009 and 2010, I wrote FUTURE TENSE. Between 2010 and 2011, an as yet unnamed and yet to be revised ghost story. Then in a furious burst of writing, DERELICT in 2012. I wasn't able to return to the sequel from hell until October of 2013, exactly five years after starting THE BETWEEN.

TIME AND TITHE took 9 months to draft. That's nearly twice the amount of time as it took me to draft DERELICT. I struggled with returning to the voice of the characters I had created so long ago, and since I had not initially planned to write a second novel in that universe, I had never created a reference bible for it. Now I had to find a way to inhabit the self I was when I wrote Lydia's story, and find a way to continue it, deepen it, yet remain true to the original. 

I think I have done that with TIME AND TITHE. What excited me about the story was the chance to explore relationships and how time changes them. In THE BETWEEN, Lydia is 18, her sister, Taylor is about 6. But time moves differently between Faerie and the mortal world, and when TIME AND TITHE begins, it's only been months for Lydia, but years for Taylor.

The sisters are now the same age.

And Faerie wants both of them.

I've been sharing snippets and short scenes on Google Plus, during #SaturdayScenes. You can read them by searching for #ljsatscenes (https://plus.google.com/u/0/explore/ljsatscenes) Scroll down to the bottom, as they are presented in reverse chronological order like in a blog.

While I'm hammering away at the revision, I've sent notes to the cover artist and am awaiting a concept sketch. If the stars align, TIME AND TITHE will be ready for release in January of 2014.